Divergence
by SirOuroboros
Summary: One idea of where the people evacuated from Earth during the Battle of the Line went and what became of them.R&R please
1. Chapter 1

**Prologue:**

"Madame President?" The EarthForce ensign nearly quivered at attention in front of her desk.

"Yes?" She sat still and straight, sure she already knew what he was about to say. The final, desperate stand had failed and the Minbari were within range of Earth.

"The Minbari are hailing the remaining forces."

"Asking for surrender?" She felt a brief flare of hope. God above knew that humanity would take any chance it could get, even if that meant surrendering. She knew as soon as she said it that it was impossible, the Minbari never asked for or accepted surrender.

"No Ma'am." On closer inspection the youngster seemed to be operating in a state of shock, something she could empathize with. The last two years had been nothing but one shock after the other.

"Then why are they hailing ensign?" She kept the annoyance out of her voice, mostly, she hoped. Losing her control at this point would be both silly and somewhat anti-climactic. If she was going to die along with billions of her fellow humans she certainly wasn't going to die shrilling at some boy.

"They're surrendering ma'am." This time his fiercely controlled expression crumpled into something she imagined would be on the face of a man receiving a pardon seconds before execution.

"They're what?" she could feel her face melting into a similar look.

"They're surrendering ma'am, to any ship that can accept the hail."

"Surrendering?" She shook her head at the wonder of the universe, or God, or Gods, or whoever, whatever you believed or imagined was running things. After two years of relentless, genocidal war and within seeming minutes of burning the majority of humanity from the face of the galaxy they just stop? Not just stop but surrender, Surrender! She asked the most obvious question that entered her mind.

"Any reason as to why?"

"None so far ma'am." What he didn't say was "Does it matter?" Which she admitted would have been her reflex in his situation.

"Very well, have Admiral Hanson send this to all remaining EarthForce vessels. Accept any offer of surrender, repeat accept any offer of surrender no questions asked."

"Yes ma'am!" The poor boy was so rushed to deliver what seemed an order of salvation for Earth and it seemed the entire human race he almost forgot to salute before racing for the door.

**Exodus**

Admiral Bergen kept station in zero-g by lightly dragging his fingers along the edge of the captain's station. These old _Conestoga_ class colony ships didn't have the centrifugal section to give a semblance of gravity to the bridge. A light tap of his fingers turned him toward the first officer. "Are all the passengers aboard?"

"Yes Sir." Commander Walker did a slow spin around his own long axis toward the console behind him to check the reports coming in from the deck officers. "All levels report secured"

Without moving the captain turned his head to the communication section. "Fleet status?"

"All ships report ready status sir."

"Give me fleet wide." Bergen slipped to the front of the station and settled on the edge of his command chair.

"Aye sir fleet open"

"All hands this is Admiral Bergen speaking." He paused, trying to gather the words for this. Finally he came to the conclusion that everything that needed to be said had been, and by those whose job it was to say those things at a time like this. "Prepare for jump."

One by one the eighteen massive vessels, the largest ships built by humanity, began to spin up the jump drives they had been retrofitted with. As each drive reached full power the ships began to disappear, dropped down a hole in space that closed behind them. As the last of convoy vanished from sight the motley assortment of transports, everything from cargo ships to luxury liners that had run the Minbari lines, began to erupt into balls of flame as the demolition charges planted on their drive cores detonated erasing all evidence that humans had ever been there.


	2. Chapter 2

Interlude

EarthGov, Geneva Switzerland

"Madam President?"

"Yes Parker?" Her secretary was the only person in the entire government that had unrestricted access to the executive office.

"Admiral Hanson's reporting as requested."

"Of course please send him right in."

"Madam President." Hanson's salute was as crisp as the day he had graduated from the EarthForce academy, even though that had been almost ten years before she was even born.

She waved off the formality "Admiral, please, sit." He gingerly lowered his bear-like bulk into one of the antique armchairs that faced her from across the equally ancient desk that had served her predecessors for close to 170 years.

"How is the fleet doing?"

"Confused mostly, confused but very, very relieved."

"Any incidents?"

"No ma'am. No one that's survived that last two years wants to start that again, even by mistake, so everyone is playing very nicely."

"And what about the evacuation fleet?"

The admiral's blunt features suddenly assumed the blankness she had long since come to associate with someone that was wishing that that question had never been asked and was trying desperately to think their way out of answering it. "What about it ma'am?"

"I assume it's been recalled?"

"Well the ships that hadn't left the system have been."

"What about the one's that have left?" Suddenly she was having the feeling that she wasn't going to like the answer to that question and the strained expression on Hanson's face looked to be bearing that out.

"Well ma'am we wanted to make sure that the Minbari wouldn't find them after they had finished with Earth."

"Meaning what exactly?"

"Meaning there are no recall codes for the fleet. Even if we had set them up no one in the Alliance would know where to send them."

"How did that happen?" This was definitely as bad as she had expected, and she was certain it was going to get worse.

"EarthForce _had_ to insure that Project Exodus succeeded. The entire Joint Chiefs knew that there was virtually zero possibility of defeating, or even slowing down the Minbari assault. One precaution we took was to input the ships final destination co- ordinates in segments, with each programmer only knowing their segment.

"What about the original surveyors?"

"Everyone involved in locating the Bastion system was assigned to the fleet. Better for them to take the secret with them rather than chance the Minbari capturing the information,"

"So to boil it down, what you're telling me is there are close to eighteen thousand humans, somewhere, that believe Earth has been destroyed by the Minbari, and that we have no way of contacting them,or even locating them to let them know otherwise?"

"Yes Madame President. So far as those eighteen thousand know they are the only surviving members of the human race. It's possible that even if we did somehow locate them they wouldn't believe us."

"Excuse me? Why wouldn't they?"

"The commander of the fleet is Admiral Bergen, he's what we call a real hard shell. He was in command of guerilla operations against the Minbari."

The President winced inwardly at that bit of information. The guerilla operations had been brutal and bloody to the extreme with almost every operation ending in huge casualties for the Minbari and total annihilation of the human forces. Anyone that had been involved in them and survived had to be considered a very capable and very dangerous individual.

"The Joint Chiefs chose him because of all the officers available he was the one that was most likely to do whatever it takes, no matter what it takes to insure the survival of the refugees and the success of the mission. If, in his opinion, that were to include firing on or even destroying any ship that isn't immediately known to him then he will."

"So what do you suggest?"

"I'll have to get back to you on that Ma'am."

The chrono on the Admiral's desktop flashed 0400 Earth time, halfway through the dog watch, and the time when anyone not on watch usually expected to be asleep. He wasn't asleep though, Bergen hadn't slept much in the two years since the war had started, and he'd just gotten used to the fact. What he was doing was staring out the view port in his quarters. Not that there was much to stare at, a debris field three A.U. across and nearly as deep orbiting the remains of a Y class brown dwarf. A quick astronomical survey revealed that more than 80 percent of the stars in the local cluster were L, T and Y class, making this cluster practically invisible to the casual star gazer and even the most dedicated astronomer would find little of interest here.

The comm. panel next to his right hand began to beep at almost the exact second the incoming call icon began flashing.

"Bergen here."

"You wanted to be notified when the colony leaders were brought out of cold sleep sir."

It was Walker, man drew night watch more than anyone else Bergen had ever served with, never seemed to bother him though.

"They've started?" He found that surprising. Almost no one besides the third watch and, of course, himself were up at this hour.

"Yes sir. Doctor Kelley wanted to get it out of the way while sickbay wasn't busy."

It made sense; Kelley was one of, if not the best, chief medical officers he'd ever served with. Leave it to him to decide to pull an all nighter rather than disrupt the normal operations of a ship. Not that this mission in any way qualified as normal.

"Yes of course. Have them report to my day room as soon as he clears them."

"Yes sir."

"Bergen out."

"Bridge out."

The admiral sat for some time after the call ended; contemplating how tomorrows inevitably difficult meeting was likely to go. Finally he gave up on it; not sleeping wasn't going to make it go any smoother. There would be plenty of things to worry about in the morning anyway, there always were.


	3. Chapter 3

"Admiral on deck." The ten officers snapped to attention as Admiral Hanson made his way across the room to settle into the oversized chair behind an equally oversized desk. Anyone else would have been dwarfed by chair, let alone the desk as well but it made the Admiral's massive frame look almost normal.

"At ease gentlemen, he scanned the assembled staff of project Exodus. "Lieutenant Commander Vega what do you have to report."

A slender dark skinned officer looked up from the tablet he had been scanning.

"Well Sir, we've tried to reconstruct the co-ordinates for the Canaan system, unfortunately some of the records were disposed of before the cease fire."

"What do you mean disposed of?" Hanson just knew he wasn't going to like the answer, and if he didn't like the answer the President would like it even less.

"Burned, Sir they…we burned the records, all we've been able to find are the preliminary planning reports and feasibility studies."

"So what does your staff recommend?" If nothing else it might give him some ideas to pass along to the President.

"We'd advise archiving what we do have and assign a study group to try and narrow down the possible systems based on the information in the reports."

"In other words, bury it and hope no one asks."

"Not in those exact words Sir, but yes.'

"Now, any ideas on what I'm going to tell the President?" The officers looked at each other uneasily.

"Gentlemen, please come in." Bergen waved the assembled civilian and military leaders into the office. Three of the five moved in the ginger manner of people not accustomed to zero g, half floating, half flailing while trying not to bump into the furniture fixed to the deck or each other. In contrast General McCall, commander of the Groupo division and Col. James, the foreman of the construction crews used the minimum amount of motion possible to get where they were going.

"First let me thank you for meeting so soon after coming out of cold sleep."

"I wasn't told we had an alternative." It was Kerral, the head of the engineering group.

"You always have the option , this isn't a military dictatorship."

"Well… Kerral looked slightly abashed at his outburst. I'd rather get to work soon as possible anyway; it'll keep people's minds off of…" He trailed off, not wanting to say what they had all considered. Earth was dead, and the Minbari were probably already cleaning out the colonies.

"Agreed Mr. Kerral." The Admiral brusquely nodded his head. "Now Colonel James, he turned to the commander of the construction battalions. "You've had a chance to review the blueprints."

"Mmhmm." the combat engineer nodded his head.

"Can you give me an estimate on how long to get the habitats built."

"A lot of variables there Sir, still once my people are out of the freezers I'd estimate roughly a month for the first one then the rest should come along faster as we have room for more personnel."

"What about the forts?" Gen McCall turned to the construction chief.

"Less time, about a week, that's if I use my whole team on them. If I have to split my people it'll draw out the completion time for any project."

"For now we'll use the ships for defense. It's more important to get people awake and settled." As the others nodded at the Admiral's decision Kerral cleared his throat.

"I thought this wasn't a military dictatorship."

"Fair enough . From now on all non military decisions will be made by taking a vote of the colony leadership."

"So would this qualify as a non military matter Admiral?" Kerral quirked an eyebrow as he asked.

"The habitats of course are civilian, but at least until the civilian contractors are brought out of cold sleep the construction crews are military. So I'm ordering Col. James to begin construction on the habitats immediately." Bergen looked from one of them to the next.

"I don't expect this to be easy or simple gentlemen, but we will succeed. We don't have any alternative."


End file.
